Biology and Information

The starting material for biological evidence is the DNA molecule
that encodes for human life. A forensic identification is made when
an evidence genotype matches a suspect genotype. But this
identification must be tempered by the possibility of a coincidental
match. This lecture introduces the likelihood ratio (LR) that
balances DNA identification with coincidence.

Bayesian Belief Update

When there is uncertainty, our beliefs are expressed as probabilities. In science, we turn to data as a way of increasing our certainty in some hypotheses over others. Bayes theorem is the mathematical way we update our beliefs by examining data. This lecture visualizes Bayesian update, using coin tossing and medical diagnosis as examples.